Harris, Fred (1930—)

Fred Harris, the “New Populist” U.S. senator, served from 1964 to 1972. He was born in the western Oklahoma small town of Walters on November 13, 1930. From a young age Harris worked in the wheat and cotton harvests. Those experiences taught him the value of hard work and the plight of share croppers.

Hard working and ambitious, Harris was a Future Farmers of America state champion in high school. He graduated college Phi Beta Kappa and finished first in his University of Oklahoma law school class of 1954. At age 25, Harris was elected to the Oklahoma State Senate, where he served for 8 years. Even as he was winning his first local campaign, Harris expressed ambition for the U.S. Senate.

Harris established a reputation as the hardest working member of the Oklahoma legislature. He worked to establish the Oklahoma Human Rights Commission. He also encouraged the development of the Oklahoma Wheat Commission. His record was not entirely populist; he also supported tax breaks for western Oklahoma's rapidly developing oil industry.

In 1964, Harris was elected to complete the term of the late U.S. Senator Robert S. Kerr. The wealthy Kerr family's support helped Harris overcome two former governors and the legendary Sooner football coach, Bud Wilkinson.

In the U.S. Senate, the hardworking Harris became known as “Mr. Science.” As a freshman senator he persuaded the chairman of the Government Operations Committee to create a subcommittee on government research and became one of the few freshmen ever to chair a subcommittee. In 1966, Oklahomans elected him to a full 6-year term.

President Lyndon Johnson was persuaded by Harris and others in 1967 to form the National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders, also known as the Kerner Commission, named after its Ohio chairman. Harris described his work on the commission as a “Damascus Road experience.” Although he had long been active in the civil rights movement, he suddenly saw the problems of poverty and race in a new light.

Harris entered the Senate calling himself an “independent Democrat.” Soon he made friends with a variety of liberal senators like Hubert Humphrey, Walter Mondale, and Robert Kennedy. Much to the frustration of his southern conservative Democratic constituency, Harris became recognized as an “establishment liberal.” In 1968, he served as cochair of Humphrey's [Page 298]presidential campaign. Following that election, Harris became chairman of the Democratic National Committee while retaining his seat in the Senate.

By 1972 Oklahoma had become a conservative state. Harris, true to his populist roots, had moved left. Rather than seek reelection in Oklahoma, in 1972 Harris chose to run for president. Harris found a platform in New York Times reporter Jack Newfield's 1971 article titled “New Populist Manifesto.” Harris began to decry many of the Great Society programs that he had helped to put in place. He felt these programs placed too much emphasis on inner-city racism and did not do enough to address the broader problem of poverty in America. Harris's campaign was short lived, but it completed his transformation from “independent Democrat” to “establishment liberal” to “new populist.” Harris tried again in 1976, whistlestopping across the country in a Winnebago.

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